Tonight
by Shtuff
Summary: Chance, Guerrero, a rooftop, cheap liquor, and a conversation about failure. One-shot.


**Disclaimer: **Human Target and its characters is the property of Fox Studios. Sadly, I own nothing but my own ideas, which bring in no profit whatsoever.

**So there is a great possibility that words cannot express my love for this show. The action is breathtaking and the depth of the characters is stunning. I must admit that, though I love all the characters so far, even the new ones, Guerrero and Chance fascinate me the most. Especially Guerrero. He is so complex and full of different layers and subtleties, and Jackie Earle Hayley's performance is frankly brilliant. I have not felt such an instant pull towards a character in a long time. **

**Anyway, gushing aside, this is my pathetic attempt at capturing two of the most complicated characters to grace television in awhile, in my humble opinion. Hopefully I didn't fail too epically. **

**Side note, the song quoted in the beginning is Lykke Li's _Tonight. _It's a beautiful song, and was a great inspiration for this fic. I recommend listening to it if you ever have the chance. **

* * *

_Watch my back so I'll make sure _

_You're right behind me as before _

_Yesterday, the night before, tomorrow _

_Dry my eyes so you won't know _

_Dry my eyes so I won't show _

_I know you're right behind me_

_Don't you let me go, let me go _

_Tonight _

_Don't you let me go, let me go _

_Tonight _

_Don't you let me go, let me go_

_Tonight _

**_- _Tonight, Lykke Li**

* * *

The city is spread out below him and builds up around him like Legos stacked on top of each other—full of sleepless lights and rushing masses hurrying toward their future. Somewhere in the mess is a hospital and in that hospital a weathered doctor is telling two worried parents that their daughter is dead. Their daughter, a gifted graduate student at Berkley University who fell in with the wrong company that demanded too much of her. Rachel Clark—twenty-two years old with blonde hair and bright, intelligent eyes—who had taken a bullet to the back of the head right in front of him, lain dead and cold in arms because he _failed. _

And in that moment—feeling her blood coat his fingers and Winston screaming into his ear and bullets still whirring through the air like bees and Guerrero destroying their enemies in a flurry of vengeance because buried beneath all the ice and the steel and the insane he still had a heart that knew how to bleed—he was back at the dock watching a boat explode and realizing she was deaddead_dead _and for the first time in his life he'd _failed._

The bottle is warm beneath his hands—the only part of him that is—and he takes a long swig, wondering how much it will take to drown himself. He knows this isn't the answer—won't help or heal or make anything better, and Winston will lecture him for hours tomorrow—but he can't bring himself to care enough to override the desire to _forget. _Forget how accusing her blue eyes were, forget the quiet of the cemetery as he knelt in the dirt in front of Katherine's grave, forget how much _blood _there had been—running over him like a river—and forget the brightness of the explosion that rocked the docks, the sadistic glee behind Baptiste's smile.

Forget _everything. _

Another drink. He's starting to feel numb, but it isn't nearly close enough—and a treacherous part of him says it never will be, that this is a pain that alcohol, Tai Chi, and reckless bids for redemption can't fix. The only thing that can, that has the power to set him free, is the cold embrace of death, the knowledge that he gave his life for someone who deserved to live far more than he did.

Instead, he'd held an innocent girl and watched her die.

Sighing, he slams the drink down on the wall of the roof, nearly cracking the bottle, and takes a deep breath through his nose, struggling to find his center. The ground hundreds of feet below looks empting, but that is cheap way to die—a cheat—and it wouldn't mean anything.

He needs his death to mean something.

"Dude, I was wondering where the cheap liquor went," a voice says from the stairs. He holds himself still, suppressing the urge to throw the bottle at the intruder's head. Guerrero's biting sarcasm and inability to express human emotion is the last thing he wants to deal with tonight of all nights.

Footsteps, light as a cat, reach his ears briefly before they are taken by the wind and then Guerrero is beside him, bending down so he can fold his arms on the wall. The lights reflect off his glasses, hiding his eyes, and play with the shadows on his face until they accent the long gash running down one side that had bled for hours after everything was said and done.

He fixates on it because it was the only reminder he has that the person next to him is still human.

"Can't you at least share?" Guerrero asks after a moment, pulling the bottle from his slack grasp and taking a long drink before handing it back with a tired sigh that is trapped between relief and pain.

Silence again, heavy with death and failure.

"Ya know, excessive brooding isn't good for your health." The weight of the silence is still present, lurking beneath the lightness in Guerrero's tone, and the contrast is staggering. It frustrates him and his fingers curl into a fist against the wall, scraping his knuckles against the unyielding brick.

If he didn't know better—and maybe the alcohol is impairing his judgment—he would think that Guerrero is fishing for a heart to heart. But that's impossible because they don't _do _that kind of thing. Winston has to pull confessions and personal thoughts from him with a metaphorical crow bar and a gallon of engine lube, and Guerrero is even worse—hiding behind cavalier sadism that sends Winston running too fast in the other direction to ever consider unearthing Guerrero's feelings.

Yet here they are, and Guerrero is looking at him now, almost expectantly. "I want to be alone," he says instead of opening up, hugging the bottle closer to him almost protectively, like a shield against this side of Guerrero he so rarely sees.

Guerrero arches an eyebrow. "Dude," the single word is condescending enough to both raise his temper and make him feel like he's young and facing the Old Man again, "I'm not leaving you alone on a roof with a twenty story drop."

"I'm not going to jump," he insists defensively. "It's a boring way to die."

Guerrero shrugs carelessly. "Doesn't mean it isn't tempting."

He has to concede that point, because less than five minutes ago he was toying with that temptation, holding it up like a precious diamond to the light, and _wondering. _Suddenly realizing how close is to the brink, he's a little glad for Guerrero's stubborn presence. Better him than Winston, because Guerrero at least understands in a way the ex-cop never could.

"See," Guerrero gives him a pointed look, "brooding isn't good for your health, dude."

Understanding or not, he still wants Guerrero to just bug off. The shorter man will never understand completely because he doesn't have a heart—just a rusted, dirty, shattered thing that merely beats a dull rhythm in his chest so he can still seem halfway alive.

Except that isn't completely true, is it? Because there are the moments, the flashes, that are so brief and fleeting they seem almost imaginary, but still so _real _he can't ignore them. The times when he or Winston is in trouble and Guerrero's eyes go wide and show too much, _far _too much. The smiles he tries to hide when Winston isn't looking that suggest he might actually enjoy the other man's company. The fact that he's here, on this freezing roof, trying to keep his friend alive.

The truth is in the little things, the saying goes. And the little things tell him there is still something human left of Guerrero's rusted, tainted heart, and maybe to an extent, he too is searching for some kind of absolution—some way to chase the dark away.

"She reminded me of Katherine," he blurts before he can stop himself—the alcohol loosening his tongue.

"I know," Guerrero says quietly and there is none of the usual mocking superiority, just a whisper full of truth and perhaps a bit of pain, but he still can't bear to look into the other man's eyes.

"I failed her," he continues—unable to stop the flood of words as the dam inside him breaks. "She trusted me to protect her—her _family _trusted me to protect her—and I _failed_."

"Yeah," Guerrero agrees softly, eyes fixed on the lights. "We all did."

He starts at the unexpected statement, finally whipping around to stare at the bloodied profile of the man next to him. There's blood on Guerrero's shirt, he realizes, dripping down his collar from the gash and turning the blue cloth an ugly shade of purple. "What?"

"We all failed her," Guerrero still doesn't look at him, but his shoulders are as rigid as bowstrings—so different from his usual stance. "We all made that promise, dude. That's why Winston's probably drinking himself stupid in the nearest bar."

"And you?" He's genuinely curious and slightly desperate for something to focus on besides the crushing feeling of defeat and despair ready to drown him deeper than alcohol ever could.

Guerrero shrugs—an attempt at casual that his stiff stance undermines. "Like I said, dude. You brooding and a twenty story drop? Not a good combination."

"I'm not going to kill myself," he snaps, genuinely angry that his supposed comrade could think so little of him.

"I know." Guerrero's amicable tone throws him off balance, but behind the lights dancing on the ex-assassin's glasses his eyes are fathomless and dark.

"Then why are you here?" He presses, taking a step into the shorter man's personal space. He has a feeling this isn't what they should be talking about at all, but it's so much easier than Guerrero's _other _statement—the one that suggest this affected his partners just as much as it did him.

Another step and he's towering over Guerrero now, peering down with an angry sneer that doesn't fit right on his face and trembling fists because he wants to hit the other man so _badly_—wants to watch his glasses crack and more blood spill until it appeases the anger and _pain _cutting him to ribbons inside. "Why do _you _care?"

He's Junior again in a safe house with a gun pointed at Guerrero's head, wanting desperately to pull the trigger. Only this time there is no Katherine to pull him back from the edge.

Guerrero sees all this and something in his bloodied expression _cracks. _

"Because I don't want to sit at home in the dark with a bottle and a gun," he hisses—voice scratched and rough like sandpaper, more out of control than Chance has ever heard him, and realization hits him like a punch to the jaw.

Guerrero isn't here for him, isn't worried that he might try to kill himself. Guerrero's worried about _himself. _And suddenly he sees, as Guerrero stands there looking like a part of him shattered with the admission, that Guerrero's heart is more than just rusty and bloodstained and capable of occasional humanity, it's a dead thing that is slowly coming back to life. It's learning how to feel again, how to _bleed, _and like all new birth and redemption it's an agonizing, _difficult _process.

Guerrero spins away, angry at how vulnerable he's let himself be, and shoves his hands in his pockets and glaring out at the city below him, but the words still coming—soft and harsh, and maybe somewhere deep inside Guerrero a dam broke, too.

"Because one of the bastards who killed her is still alive and for the first time in a long time, dude, I want to torture someone to death just so I can see them _suffer_. Just so I can tear them _apart—_I_" _He jerks himself to a stop, slamming his palms on the wall and taking a deep, steadying breath.

Chance waits tensely for him to patch himself back together, feeling unsettled and off-balance, but strangely relieved that for once, just once, he isn't alone in this pain—and he ignores the voice that sounds like Winston reminding him that he was _never _alone. Watching Guerrero unravel still hurts unexpectedly, though, but he _understands, _oh he understands, so he remains quiet and stands with Guerrero on the edge of the abyss.

At last, the shorter man takes a small step back from the wall and sighs. "I was there, dude. I saw the shot. I watched her die, too. This affects us all, Chance," he murmurs. "You're just more used to the pain than we are."

He swallows painfully, wishing he wasn't almost out of alcohol. This is too much, and they don't _do _this kind of thing, but it still feels _right, _somehow—and it's so confusing he can't sort it out into neat little boxes he can bury and deal with. He doesn't know what to say, or if he's supposed to say anything at all, so he hovers in indecision for a terse moment before taking a hesitant step forward.

"I'm sorry," he offers, and it's more instinctive than anything else. He doesn't know what he's apologizing for, and when Guerrero spares him an annoyed look over his shoulder he realizes it wasn't exactly the right thing to say.

"Dude, I'm not looking for pity." He breathes a small sigh of relief over the fact that Guerrero chooses that road—even when he knows it wasn't pity that brought on the words—instead of Chance's eternal guilt complex.

"I know," he echoes Guerrero's earlier statement and there is none of his usual flippancy, just a whisper full of truth and a lot of pain.

A brief, dark smile tugs on the corner of Guerrero's mouth when he turns around fully, eyeing the bottle in Chance's hand. "Dude, c'mon," he gestures toward the door. "We're almost out of cheap liquor."

He chuckles, but there's no mirth—and the shadows in Guerrero's eyes say the ex-assassin understands. They traipse down the stairs in silence, tumbling into the office with none of their usual grace. He feels tired and his eyelids feel like lead, but there is still too much emotion churning through him to let him sleep so he watches Guerrero fish another bottle out of the fridge and follows the other man to the couch. They collapse side by side and Carmine pads over the curl up at their feet.

Guerrero flicks on the TV to a dull reality show and they pass the bottle back in forth in silence, trying to forget but not drown—not anymore.

As some girl with too much makeup and the worst hairdo he's ever seen rants on about partying and drunkenness and general debauchery, he sneaks a glance at Guerrero out of the corner of his eye, watching the other man eye the screen with detached disdain. He's thankful, then, for the presence on the couch next to him, thankful again that he's not facing this alone. Katherine might not be there anymore to pull him back from the brink, but Guerrero and Winston are.

And for now, as imperfect as it may be, that's enough.

* * *

Three days later, a funeral is held for Rachel Clark. He's isn't invited, but he doesn't think he would have gone even if he was, so he sits at home and does Tai Chi and tries not to brood or drink too much.

When everything is over and another week has gone by, he puts on a suit and goes out in the rain to a different cemetery than the one he usually frequents. He buys flowers on the way there, red roses, and carries the bouquet to a new and polished headstone on the sixteenth row near an old oak tree.

But he stops and stares in surprise when he reaches the grave, because amidst all the dying flowers from the funeral is a single white rose lying at the base of the headstone, looking a little worse for wear but still fresh.

A genuine smile forces its way onto his face and he lays his own flowers carefully next to the rose. Maybe, he's right about Guerrero—about coming back to life and absolution and blood beneath a dirty, rusted heart.

Maybe something good can come from death, after all.

* * *

**Review? Please? **


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